The present invention relates to illumination devices for vehicles.
One of such illumination devices is disclosed for example in the German patent document DE 41 12 194 A1. The illumination device is formed as a headlight unit which has at least one light source and a light-permeable cover member. The headlight unit has a low beam headlight and a high beam headlight each provided with a light source. The headlight unit moreover has a further light source which serves for producing a side marker light and whose light is reflected from a partial region of the reflector of the high beam headlight and passes through the cover member. This partial region of the reflector of the high beam headlight can not be used for producing the high beam bundle and a cover member must be provided with special optical elements so as to produce the above described limiting light beam from the light beam reflected from the partial region of the reflector. For the operation of the side marker light components which are provided for other illuminating functions, such as the low beam light or high beam light, are utilized such as for example the reflector of the high beam or low beam headlight and the cover disk. This however negatively affects the design for performing their proper illumination functions, in particular the low beam and high beam. When only the light source for producing the side marker light is operated, only a small part of the headlight unit provides illumination.